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Cryptids and Myths Wiki:Project CryptoResources/Patagonian sloth/Ameghino, Florentino "An Existing Ground-Sloth in Patagonia," Natural Science 13 (1898)
III An Existing Ground-Sloth in PatagoniaTranslated from a pamphlet entitled "Premiere Notice sur le Neomylodon listai, un Representat vivant des anciens Edentes Gravigrades fossiles de l'Argentina," by Florentino Ameghino, seperately published by the author in the city of La Plata, Argentine Republic, August 1898. We have already noticed this important discovery (p.288), but it is one of so much interest to zoologists that no apology is needed for directing further attention to the subject by reproducing the complete article. MANY times I have heard allusions to a mysterious quadruped which is said to exist in the interior of the territory of Santa Cruz, living in burrows hollowed out in the soil, and usually only coming out at night. According to the reports of the Indians, it is a strange creature, with long claws and a terrifying appearance, impossible to kill because it has a body impenetrable alike to firearms and missiles. It is several years since the late Ramon Lista, a traveller and geographer well known to the world of science, told both myself, my brother Charles, and several other persons—and had, I believe, even printed the statement in one of his works—that he had seen the mysterious quadruped in person. He came across it one day during one of his journeys in the interior of the territory of Santa Cruz, but in spite of all his efforts he was unable to capture it. Several shots failed to stop the animal, which soon disappeared in the brushwood; all search for its recovery being useless. Lista retained a perfect recollection of the impression this encounter made upon him. According to him the animal was a pangolin (Manis), almost the same as the Indian one, both in size and in general aspect, except that in place of scales, it showed the body to be covered with a reddish grey hair. He was sure that if it were not a pangolin, it was certainly an edentate nearly allied to it. In spite of the authority of Lista, who, besides being a learned traveller, was also a skilled observer, I have always considered that he was mistaken, the victim of an illusion. Still, although I have several times tried to find out what animal might have given him the illusion of the pangolin, I was never able to guess. It was not an illusion. Although extremely rare and almost extinct, the mysterious animal exists, with the sole difference, that instead of being a pangolin, it is the last representative of a group which was believed to be quite extinct, a gravigrade edentate related to Mylodon and Pseudolestodon. The gravigrade edentates are reckoned among the oldest mammals which appeared upon the earth. The most ancient traces of them have been observed below the Guaranian Formation, with gigantic Dinosaurs, in the variegated sandstones of Patagonia, which are referred to the Lower Cretaceous. They become more numerous in the PyrotheHum beds of the Guaranian, develop gradually, and attain their greatest diversity during the Upper Eocene (Santa Cruz Formation). Thenceforward their variety decreases, but their size gradually increases, until in the Pampean they are represented by a certain number of gigantic forms, such as Megatherium, Lestodon, Mylodon, etc. Rare fragments in a bad state of preservation have been found even in the Post-Pampean deposits, but no one had supposed that they still had living representatives. Some of the Pampean genera show a very curious character: the body was protected on all sides by an incredible number of small irregular ossicles, which it is supposed were developed in the thickness of the skin, and thus became covered with a horny or scaly epidermis. The genera showing this peculiarity are Mylodon, Pseudolestodon, and Glossotherium. The other genera, such as Megatherium, Lestodon, and Scelidotherium, do not show any trace of it. Besides in the Pampean Formation these ossicles are met with in the Araucanian Formation of Monte Hermoso and Catamarca, and also in the Kntrerios Formation; but no trace of them has been found in the Santacruzian, where the gravigrade edentates are so abundant, or in the earlier formations. We conclude from this that the character in question is not primitive, but acquired secondarily at a relatively modern period. These ossicles, comparable to large coffee berries, differ slightly in shape and size according to the genera. In Glossotherium they are large and flattened; in Mylodon they are smaller, irregular, elliptical, trapezoidal, or rhomboidal, with one side more convex or keeled, their diameter varying from one to two centimetres, though sometimes less. Their surface, more especially on the flattest side, shows some tiny depressions and perforations, and reticular tracery well seen under the magnifying glass. Their aspect is so characteristic that when one has once seen them they are recognised immediately without any danger of being mistaken. Lately, several little ossicles have been brought to me from Southern Patagonia, and I have been asked to what animal they could belong. What was my surprise on seeing in my hand these ossicles in a fresh state, and, notwithstanding that, absolutely similar to the fossil dermal ossicles of the genus Mylodon, except only that they are of smaller size, varying from 9 to 13 or 14 mm. across. I have carefully studied these little bones from every point of view without being able to discern any essential difference from those found in a fossil state. These ossicles were taken from a skin which was unfortunately incomplete, and without any trace of the extremities. The skin, which was found on the surface of the ground, and showed signs of being exposed for several months to the action of the air, is in part discoloured. It has a thickness of about 2 centimetres, and is so tough that it is necessary to employ an axe or a saw in order to cut it. The thickest part of the skin is filled by the little ossicles referred to, pressed one against the other, presenting on the inner surface of the skin an arrangement similar to the pavement of a street. The exterior surface shows a continuous epidermis, not scaly, covered with coarse hair, hard and stiff, having a length of 4 to 5 centimetres and a reddish tint turning towards grey. The skin indeed belongs to the pangolin which Lista saw living. This unfortunate traveller lost his life, like Crevaux, in his attempt to explore the Pilcomayo, and until the present time he is the only civilised person who has seen the mysterious edentate of Southern Patagonia alive; and to attach his name appropriately to the discovery, I call this surviving representative of the family Mylodontidae Neomylodon listai. Now that there are certain proofs of its existence, we hope that the hunt for it will not be delayed, and that before long we may be able to present to the scientific world a detailed description of this last representative of a group which has of old played a preponderating part in the terrestrial faunas which have succeeded each other on South American soil. FLORENTINO AMEGHINO Category:Project CryptoResources Category:Project CryptoResources/Patagonian ground sloth